McDonald’s and IBM’s Watson are Oscars star turns

By most people’s judgement this year’s Super Bowl ads failed to wow – how did the Oscars do?

Here are a couple of advertisers who seemed to have spent their money wisely. McDonald’s looks like it may be turning things round with its All Day Breakfast (business isn’t always rocket science is it?). Agency Leo Burnett Chicago noted that this year Oscar winners were limited to 45-second speeches so decided to offer a further embellishment (in 30 seconds) by suggesting it would be better to look at its food than someone in a DJ or a frock.

IBM’s Watson, which describes itself these days as a “platform for cognitive business” (but we’re all platforms now) and agency Ogilvy reeled in Ridley Scott and original Star Wars actress Carrie Fisher to underline that Watson is a nice robot, not one of those that’s going to nix us all one day.

Sir Ridley, as my friend George Parker of Adscam points out, directed Apple’s ‘1984’ to launch the Mac which, eventually, disrupted IBM’s cosy world of big expensive computers. That IBM is still with us, in seemingly rude health, is something of a business miracle.